Dunkan Bulk
Dunkan Bulk is a veteran Hero and senior member of Hero Factory Alpha Team. Biography Early Career One of the earliest known Heroes to be manufactured by the Hero Factory, Bulk came into being in the Assembly Tower in Makuhero City, based off of schematics designed by Akiyama Makuro. Trained alongside Jimi Stringer, Von Ness, and Preston Stormer, the four young Heroes were assigned to Alpha Team, operating under a hero named Thresher. During this time, Alpha Team was notably charged with dismantling the Legion of Darkness criminal syndicate, which had arisen in opposition to the Hero Factory after their string of early successes. With an XT4 unit successfully infiltrating the Assembly Tower, the Hero Factory was temporarily shut down following a media frenzy. Scheduled to be retasked as a sentry unit guarding for the conglomerate cooperate entity of Makuhero Industries, Bulk and his teammates defied orders and returned to the Assembly Tower, capturing a number of high-profile criminals in the process. This successful operation notably earned Bulk a commendation and restored the reputation of Hero Factory. Following an ill-fated mission in Stellac City, Stormer returned to the Assembly Tower with Thresher, who had been a mortally wounded by a heavily-weaponized mechanoid and the betrayal of Von Ness. With Thresher retiring soon after the ordeal, Stormer took on the role of Alpha Leader, with Stringer and Bulk supplementing his Hero team. Training together in the years after Thresher's departure, all three members of Alpha Team were known to have earned veteran status, making them the most prominent Hero team in active duty. Von Nebula's Revenge Several years into his career as an Alpha Team member, Bulk and his cohorts were assigned three new rookie Heroes to their unit: Mark Surge, Natalie Breez, and William Furno. While Stormer became notoriously hard to please and held unrealistic expectations of the new recruits, Bulk and Stringer grew more sympathetic. Acting as part of an armed escort for a shipment of C-4000 on Merak 9 several months later, Bulk and his team were ambushed by XPlode and Rotor, two notorious galactic bandits. Working with Stringer to contain Rotor, Bulk was eventually forced to cover his teammate from XPlode. Doubling back and re-engaging the two criminals, the Heroes were eventually able to corner Rotor while XPlode escaped. Offering Furno the opportunity to apply the Hero Cuffs, the Heroes were unable to apprehend either thief. Several days later, Alpha Team was assaulted by Corroder whilst overseeing the construction of Penitentiary 1331. Heroically pushing Surge out of the line of fire, Bulk was pinned down beneath a pile of girders and injured. While Stringer drew Corroder away from the scene, Surge attempted to revive Bulk with limited success until reinforcements could be dispatched from the Assembly Tower. An unclear number of solar cycles later, Stormer accompanied Furno, Breez, and Surge on a training exercise under his instruction. Ambushed by Meltdown and exposed to a burst of degraded nuclear waste, Stormer's armor plating was breached and the Alpha Leader became infected with a potent swarm of microscopic nanobots. Returning to the Assembly Tower for a diagnostic report, the nanobots swiftly began to affect the chemistry of Stormer's central processor, heightening his aggression. Resorting to a more primal nature, Stormer engaged Bulk, Stringer, and Furno, escaping out into Makuhero City. With Bulk and Stringer leading Breez and Surge on a mission to retrieve the chemical antidote from Lunar Tratix, Furno trailed Stormer through Makuhero City. Locating the compound needed to purge the nanobots from Stormer's system, the Heroes were attacked by a Tratix Reptoid, which entangled Surge and prompted Bulk and Stringer to return fire. With Breez establishing contact with the Reptoid, the Heroes were ultimately able to retrieve the mineral and return to the Assembly Tower. With Furno having successfully located and retrieved Stormer, Hero Factory scientists were able to synthesize a cure that purged the nanobots for Stormer's system and remedied the Hero of Meltdown's infection. Several days later, Bulk responded to a distress call in New Stellac City alongside Stringer and Stormer. Marveling at a statue erected to commemorate Stormer's defeat of the Drone many years ago, the three Heroes swiftly discerned that they had walked into an ambush, with Thunder and Corroder emerging from two transporter pods. After a brief firefight, Bulk and his cohorts were seemingly overpowered and lost contact with Hero Factory Mission Control. With Furno, Breez, and Surge arriving on the scene as reinforcements only for XPlode and Meltdown to appear, Bulk his teammates moved from their shelter to cover the rookies. With Alpha Team reassembled, the Heroes were confronted by a swirling, nebulous vortex in the sky above New Stellac City. With their weapons magnetically attracted to the gravitational anomaly, Stringer reluctantly relinquished his Sonic Boom Weapon before diving into the dimensional breach to confront Von Ness. With Furno defying orders and following him, Stringer was forced to fend off the villains with his remaining teammates while disarmed. Implementing the Particle Separators added to their collective arsenals before the mission, the four Heroes were able to weather the worst of the projectile attacks unharmed until all four criminals depleted their energy weapons. Successfully apprehended the rest of Von Nebula's cohorts without their weapons, the four Heroes would witness the return of Stormer and Furno and the defeat of Von Nebula. Upon their return to Makuhero City, Bulk and his fellow Elite heroes presented Furno, Breez, and Surge to Daniella Capricorn, announcing them as the latest additions to Alpha Team. Over the course of the following months, Bulk would return to active patrol duty and interact sparingly with his teammates. During the raid of Tanker Station 22, Bulk was attending Akiyama Makuro's unveiling of the Upgrade. While initially intrigued by the promises of a more endurable and adaptive Hero frame, Stringer was disheartened by the revelation that the Upgrade would take several months to be tested and rolled out into production. After witnessing several of his Alpha Team compatriots prematurely equipped with this new frame in order to combat Fire Lord, Bulk was soon fitted in the Assembly Tower. During this time, Stringer would witness three new Heroes joining Alpha team: Evo, Nex, and Rocka. Savage Planet Several months later, the Hero Factory received an urgent distress signal from a rookie named Rocka, who had countermanded instructions and journeyed to the planet Quatros. Refitted with wolf-themed armor, Bulk accompanied a team consisting of Stormer, Stringer, Nex, and Furno to recover their teammate, quelling several instances of in-fighting and excessive showmanship amongst the Heroes. Landing the Dropship on the quarantined jungle planet, Bulk listened as Stormer reiterated the mission parameters and recounted the tale of Professor Aldeous Witch's exile, a former Hero Factory scientist who had sent out the initial distress beacon. Venturing out onto the planet's surface, the Heroes tracked their fallen teammate's unique Quaza signature, eventually finding him unconscious with depleted energy reserves. While escorting the weakened rookie back to the Dropship, Furno became separated from the group and was approached by Aldeous Witch, who had now adopted the title of Witch Doctor. Surviving the encounter, Furno returned to report that the Witch Doctor was controlling Quatros' wildlife for his own sinister purposes, correlating with Rocka's testimony. With Rocka refitted with his own set of jungle armor, the Heroes set off once more in search of Witch Doctor, eventually reaching an abandoned teleportation device. However, with Rocka and Furno constantly bickering derailing his leadership efforts, Stormer furiously proposed that they each head up a smaller team of three to once and for all decide who was the better tactician. Joining Stormer on Rocka's team, Bulk journeyed on through the reactivated teleportation unit only to be reconstituted on the other side with his teammates at a fraction of their original height. Evading capture in their diminished forms, the team performed reconnaissance by gathering information on the Witch Doctor's mining operation. Correctly determining that the villain intended to extract the raw Quaza mineral from beneath the sacred temple grounds, Rocka and Bulk were cornered by the Witch Doctor's Fangz hounds, leaving Stormer to relay the developing situation back to the Hero Factory command center, prompting Furno to home in on their location. Reunited with the rest of the team while Furno drew Witch Doctor's attention, Nex was able to restore power to the teleportation system and reconstitute Stormer, Rocka, and Bulk back to their original size. Now at full strength, Stormer returned to the helm and led the charge against the Witch Doctor. After a confrontation with a pair of corrupted Fangz specimens, Bulk and Stringer was ultimately able to remove the corrupted Quaza Spikes from the creatures, thus releasing them from Witch Doctor's control. With Rocka refitting himself in ancient armor found beneath the temple grounds, the Heroes were finally able to overwhelm Witch Doctor and destroy his Skull Staff, ceasing his influence over the planet's wildlife. However, with the drilling probe still in operation, Witch Doctor was able to extract the last deposit of Quaza mineral from Quatros' surface, thus debilitating the delicate ecosystem of the planet. Working to bring down the probe, Bulk and Furno were able to damage the thrusters and return the Quaza to the temple grounds from which they had been extracted, thus restoring Quatros to its original state of floral abundance. With the rescue mission complete and the exiled professor apprehended, Bulk and Stringer detained Witch Doctor and transported him back to the Hero Craft, ready for transport to the Villain Storage Facility beneath the Assembly Tower. BREAKOUT Some time after the Tanker Station 22 mission and notably coinciding with Black Phantom's assault on the Assembly Tower, a villain named Voltix was known to have smuggled the essence of Von Nebula into Villain Storage. Evading the security measures, Von Nebula's gaseous form was able to trigger the Black Hole Orb Staff and conjure a localized black hole portal in the central chamber. With the cells deactivated in the ensuring power surge, Bulk and his teammates attempted to subdue the criminals before they reached the dimensional gateway and escaped. Unable to contain a single villain, however, the Heroes watched the dimensional gate collapse then reported the solemn news back to the Command Center. With Hero Factory resources spread thin, Mission Control assigned each Hero an individual mission to capture and subdue an escaped criminal. Assigned the task of subduing Core Hunter, Bulk was refitted with high-impact shoulder armor and equipped with both a Plasma Blaster and a shoulder-mounted Missile Launcher. Adjusting to his new frame, Bulk was dispatched trail Core Hunter through Makuhero City after intelligence came to light that he had not in fact exited through the vortex with the other villains. However, Bulk's investigation turned up no new leads. However, once Bulk had returned to Makuhero City and the Hero Factory systems had been restored, Alpha Team would later discover that Black Phantom had acquired the blueprints of the entire Assembly Tower and distributed them to an unknown recipient. Following several failed attempts to recapture Core Hunter, however, Bulk would later participate in an Alpha Team recovery operation to track down the mercenary. Partnered with Breez, Bulk investigated a criminal way-station on a frontier planet that Core Hunter had once operated from. After an encounter with the escaped convict, however, the two Heroes soon discovered that Core Hunter was searching for the three components of the Doom Box, a doomsday device of galactic proportions. Reconvening with Alpha Team on the planet the Doom Box was forged on, Bulk and his teammates were overpowered by their adversary until Surge dealt a decisive blow that presumably disrupted Core Hunter's molecular constitution. Brain Attack Several months after the mass-breakout event, Bulk was recalled to the Assembly Tower and informed of an impending attack on Makuhero City. With the planet's local wildlife growing increasingly volatile and banding together around the Hero Factory headquarters, Stormer temporarily delegated leadership responsibilities to Furno while Bulk was refitted in the Assembly Tower. Adorned with a locking clamp around his Hero Core and a Visor, Bulk accompanied Alpha Team into the central quadrant of Makuhero City to fend off the army of mutated invaders, noting that their attackers were possessed by parasitic Brains. Engaging a number of mutated Bruizers, Bulk and his teammates enjoyed considerable success in repelling the creatures, keeping the damage to a minimum and ensuring as few civilian casualties as possible. Once Bulk announced his discovery that the artificial Brains could be removed from their hosts by a blow to the cranium over the shared radio feed, the Heroes were able to more effectively combat the creatures. Responding to a perimeter breach in the Assembly Tower, Bulk accompanied Alpha Team back to Mission Control, where he was faced with a platoon of corrupted Blank Heroes and his missing teammate, Mark Surge, who had been taken over by one of the Brains. Fending off the Blank Heroes, Bulk established an opening for Breez to free Surge and deactivate the Blank Heroes. With the origins of the Brains continuing to elude the Heroes despite their victory, Bulk would aid in the recovery effort and take on greater responsibility from this point onward. Several weeks later, after Rocka and Breez were dispatched to intercept the Valiant star-cruiser on a collision course with Makuhero City, Bulk sparked an ethical confrontation with Stormer, who had personal ties to the star-cruiser's captain. Reinforced by Furno, Bulk convinced Stormer that Breez and Rocka would be unable to deter the craft from its trajectory, prompting Stormer to launch off after the two Heroes and place Bulk in temporary command of Alpha Team. With the spacecraft entering the inner solar system, Bulk regretfully authorized a platoon of Dropships to intercept the Valiant with destructive force. With Stormer, Rocka, and Breez managing to commandeer the vessel before it entered the planet's atmosphere, Bulk was forced to hurriedly cancel the order to save the lives of his teammates. With his pride wounded from his experience as acting Alpha Leader, Bulk would later draft a letter of resignation only for Stormer to reject it, instead commending him for his tough call. Abilities and Traits Originally designed for brute force and with advanced muscular capabilities, Bulk's programming allows for slower processing than his fellow Heroes. While a cycle of constant upgrades have continued to improve his perception, Bulk routinely endeavors to compensate through extensive research and reliance upon verbal instruction. Despite his traditionally heftier builds and delayed reactions, Bulk maintains a proud legacy as one of Alpha Team's senior members. With decades of experience at his disposal, he has amassed a considerable reputation for his heroism and strength, which have been the envy of his more heavyset contemporaries for years. Distinguished by his stocky build and and deep voice, Bulk is one of the most durable Heroes on active duty. Arsenal In his original form, Bulk was equipped with a Metal Sphere Shooter, a large weapon capable of firing energized cobalt-nickel spheres at tremendous velocity. With the capacity to fire twenty rounds per minute and equipped with sensors to enhance its accuracy, Bulk proudly wielded the Metal Sphere Shooter as his signature weapon for many years. Some time after being refitted with the Upgrade, Bulk was temporarily equipped with jungle-compatible armor channeling the abilities of a wolf. In this form, he notably wielded a pair of wrist-mounted blades and was reconfigured to allow for enhanced speed. Refitted to combat the mass BREAKOUT event, Bulk was equipped with high-impact shoulder armor. Wielding a Plasma Shooter and a shoulder-mounted Missile Launcher, he was armed for both long-ranged and melee combat. During the events of the BRAIN ATTACK, Bulk was refitted with a set of High Speed Laser Drill, a weapon capable of firing explosive missile rounds and drilling through metal. Additionally, he was refitted with a Locking Clamp around his Hero Core and a specialized Visor. 1.0 Bulk2.png|Bulk's Original Form VAPORBULK.png|Bulk equipped with a Jetpack 2.0 Bulk2.png Bulk 3.0.png|Bulk 3.0 Bulk Breakout.png|BREAKOUT Bulk Bulk_Brain_Attack.jpg|BRAIN ATTACK Bulk Minifigure_Bulk.jpg|Invasion From Below minifigure variant of Bulk Trivia *Bulk was voiced by Christopher B. Duncan in the Hero Factory Television Show. Appearances *Hero Factory Television Show **''Trials of Furno'' - First Appearance **''Savage Planet'' **''Brain Attack'' *''Secret Mission Files #1: The Doom Box'' *''Secret Mission Files #2: Legion of Darkness'' *''Secret Mission Files #3: Collision Course'' *''Secret Mission Files #4: Robot Rampage'' *''Secret Mission Files #5: Mirror World'' Category:Canon Articles Category:Alpha Team Category:Heroes Category:Characters Category:Hero Factory Category:Veteran Heroes Category:Brain Attack